


Protection

by MercyTheFox



Category: Persona 2, Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series, Persona | Revelations Persona
Genre: Addiction, Also I'm sorry I'm not sorry, Crossdressing, Death, Drama, Drug Use, Drunkness, Eternal Punishment didn't happen, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Headcanon, Illness, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, P5FlowerChild, Terminal Illnesses, but I have shipped Naoya and Kei for the longest of time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-27 05:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10803108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyTheFox/pseuds/MercyTheFox
Summary: Naoya Toudou loved his bother, Makoto was everything to him. He fought long and hard to gain guardianship of him after their parents death. And as his soul was cracked, broken, and weak, he stared at the sky. Bloody head to toe, wondering if it had all been for nothing. If he'd failed to protect him, if Kei had been right."I'm sorry... I'm so sorry." he cried.A/N: In which P1 portage is P3's older brother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Also I'm sorry I'm not sorry, but I have shipped Naoya and Kei for the longest of time. Hate it? Well bite me!
> 
> Head canon for P5 is based off P5FlowerChild's tumblr blog. 
> 
> Also I wrote this LONG before P5 was even give an release date.

Naoya Toudou leaned on an old door frame watching over a young boy. It had been three years since the child lost his parents, passed around by family members for the first year. It was finally decided it would he Naoya who take the child in. They hadn’t really wanted to bother the man. Many of the family members didn’t even want the boy near him, ‘a troublemaker’ they called him. But end the end he was the best option for the boy, what Naoya hadn’t expected was the darkness that now lived in the boy. 

The amount of it made it hard to breath at times, at first he hadn’t understood. Until one night it had be come very late, normally he went to bed early due to the demand of his presents at work. But that night, he’d stayed up late to work on some papers. As the power went out he knew he’d been out far to long for it to had become this hour of the night. The hour in which he’d found demons roamed. Bad night at the bar, he shivered remembering the first time he’d been out this late. The first time in years that he had to even consider using his persona. Calling it a night he cleaned up his work area and putting away anything else left out in the house. And so with a yawn he made his way up the stairs to check on the boy before going to bed himself. 

From the moment his hand touched the door handle, a shiver made it’s way down his spin as the crushing weight of power overwhelmed him. Gasping his eyes went wide, almost like the air had been knocked out of him. He’d never felt such power before in his life, not even in his fight to save the world. This was much different, so much pain, sadness, and death. Pushing the door open as fast as he could, Naoya took a step back as he entered the room. He stared at the entity floating above the boy’s bed and he knew what it was. 

Narrowing his eyes he stared the being down, why, why was it here. What did the boy have to do with it, the whole thing confused him. Hearing the bed creek Naoya’s eyes snapped to the boy who was making up. He didn’t say anything but stared at him in confusion, for a moment Naoya thought the boy couldn’t see the being above him. But when the boy turned around he almost seemed to smile and Naoya watched in horror as the child embraced Death’s arms.  
“Makoto!” he couldn’t help but call after the boy taking a few steps forward, only to freeze at the look Death had give him. 

Biting his lip he thought of calling forth a persona, but the boy was to close, in the way. Death set the boy back down in his bed, giving one last look to Naoya before the power came back on and Death vanished. Taking a deep breath he ran over to the boy looking for any signs of being hurt. Seeing nothing he held the boy close to him, which only seemed to confuse the child. Trying his best to calm his nerves he pulled away looking straight into the boy’s eyes. “Get dressed.” he tried to sound calm, he really did. The boy wanted to question why he had to get dressed at one in the morning. But Naoya didn’t give him the chance, he was already up going though the boy’s closet pulling out a bag packing some of the boy’s belongings 

 

This seemed to worry the boy as panic swelled inside him, “N-no!” he spoke unsure of his own voice. Naoya stopped and looked at him, “I don’t want you leave, please don’t send me away like the others!” Naoya’s eyes went wide, setting the bag down he went over kneeling in front of the boy.  
“No I would never!” he spoke placing his hands on the side of the boy’s arms. “Why would you think that?” he questioned. The boy shifted and mumbled staring down at his hands. “What?”  
“Everyone said I smelled like death and was weird.” he mumbled louder, “When they asked me where I wanted to live, I said with you. But they wouldn’t let me.” Naoya mentally cursed his stupid family for acting that way.  
“Makoto, we’re brothers and brother’s stick together.” he smiled at the boy who wiped his tears away. “If they’d allowed me to take you in the first place, I would had.” brushing the boy’s longish blue hair away from his face Naoya grinned, “I’ll have you know I fought against them every day before they finally caved.” ruffling his hair Naoya stood back up, “Now come on, we’re going on a road trip.” he winked at the boy who seemed to smile big. 

 

Makoto slid off the bed rushing over to get dressed, Naoya headed down the hall to his own room. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand he bit his lip, he knew the man wouldn’t be to happy to see him on his doorstep so early in the morning. But he needed help, the fact Death hovered of his little brother like a guardian and Makoto just embracing him like that made Naoya feel like he had died himself. 

Kneeling down next to his bed he reached under pulling the floorboards up, grunting he lifted a bag out from the whole. To be honest he wasn’t sure he’d really even need the bag, but always better safe than sorry. Setting it on the bed he rummaged through it making sure everything was still in place.  
“Brother.” Makoto peeked in the room, his back slung over his shoulder. Naoya nodded seeing that he was ready, he finished shoving his clothes into another bag. Both bags hanging off his shoulder he grabbed his keys and cell phone. Trying to be as quiet as possible, loading up his old beat up car. He handed Makoto a blanket and pillow, knowing it wouldn’t be long into the drive that the boy would fall asleep. 

 

Glancing at the boy from the rearview mirror he felt worry rise up in him again. Shaking his head he pulled out into the road and settled in for would be a long drive.  
That was a year ago, pushing off the door frame he closed the door softly heading back down the hall to his room. The softly pit pat of his slippers on the ice cold marble floors reminded him of where he was. Glancing down from the second floor he saw a faint light coming from the living area. Raising an eyebrow turned and headed down the stairs. Stepping into the living area he sighed, “Why are you still up?” he asked making his presence known. The person in question, Kei Nanjo, glanced up from his work.  
“Paper work,” he spoke in annoyance, “The Kirijo Group has made a mess of everything.” leaning back he covered his face letting out a sigh, “What person in their right mind wants to awaken death.”  
Naoya shook his head sitting down in one of the many chairs, “Well no one would want to awaken death if they were in their right mind, but they aren't.” he almost seemed to laugh, but let out a yawn instead. Kei narrowed his eyes glancing at his friend, Naoya had lost a lot of weight since he showed up, at times Kei swore he could see Naoya’s bones. He knew why too, despite Naoya’s protest that he was fine he was in fact not fine. 

When Kei had seen the being of Death surrounded the young boy, needless to say he was speechless. They’d been trying to figure out how rid the child of Death, but nothing had proved fruitful. It was this point Makoto began to become sick, with no other options at the time and worry of Makoto becoming more ill. Naoya took a huge risk, one that Kei did not support or agree with by even one percent. Knowing this Naoya had done it behind his back, using his own power of persona, he suppressed Death within the boy trying to stop whatever darkness that did leak out. And within a week Makoto was ten times better. Naoya however, his own health slowly began to decline. Kei could imagine suppressing Death was no simple task. 

 

“You shouldn’t be up.” he spoke tone colder than before eyes bearing down on the man.  
“I’m fine, you worry too much.” same as always, Naoya would wave off any worry their group had for him.  
“What about a year from now? Or two years, three, four, five, when he’s an adult.” Kei rested his elbows on the desk clasping his fingers together, “Naoya, with the health you have now from just six months of suppressing Death, you probably won't even live the full year.” 

 

“I have to protect him.” Naoya glanced away staring at the ground.  
“And how are you going to protect him when you can’t even protect yourself-”  
“I’ll find away!”  
“You will die!” Kei snapped, “You will die and he will be alone. Do you expect your family to take care of him?” Naoya opening his mouth but clamped it right back shut, “Exactly, they will pawn him off to some foster family, he will be alone, he will not be given the care he gets from you, and in the long run he’ll end up dying most likely. Why? Because he will have nothing to live for.”  
Naoya stood to his feet striding over to the other man, he went around the side of the desk he grabbed Kei’s caller tightly, his eyes hidden by his long banges.  
“You know nothing!” he hissed.  
“I know more than you think, I know you can’t eat properly, I know you’ve lost more than forty pounds, I know sway when you walk because of how light headed you are and lack a nutrition, I know when you cough, you cough up blood about forty-five percent of the time, I know if you die that boy will have nothing left and he will give up, shall I keep going?” Kei stared at him blankly, tried to at least. He honestly wasn’t sure if Naoya would do something to him, but nun the less he tried to stay as calm as possible to make his point.  
“Then what do you suggest I do?!” by this point Naoya’s hands were shaking.  
“I was hoping you would ask.” Kei grabbed Naoya’s wrist pulling his hand away from his caller, “We have one other option, to keep you in good health and Death sealed away, at least until he’s older. By then we would have a means of separating the two. There is a downside though.”

 

Pushing his glasses up he looked Naoya straight in the eyes, “He will forget everything.” Naoya’s breath hitched in the back of his toughs, “It’s the only way to insure it works.”  
“I don’t understand…” Kei sighed.  
“We need to awake his persona, however he’s still too young to understand what a persona is let alone use one. So much like Tatsuya and his group, he will forget about it and the events. If he forgets that death is even there to start with, there is less likely chance of him awaking it by accident. Meanwhile his persona will keep it in check.” Kei leaned back when Naoya finally let go fully, “I understand he's your brother, but you said it yourself, you job is to protect him. This is the only way you can do it.” 

“I know, I know, but….even so we don’t have enough members to even do the Persona game.”

“Not true, I was able to get in contact with Maki, they’ve both agreed to help. As for the two other people, Maki was speaking of the child Tatsuya and Jun adopted about three years ago. Apparently he has a strong darkness and connection to the new demons we see now each night. There also is a boy about seven years old who seems to have a extremely strong connection to the goddess Izanami. Jun didn’t want to, but both Tatsuya and himself agreed to it, the only problem now is the other boy, Yu Narukami.” Kei crossed his arms, “I was able to get in contact with the mother of the boy, however they aren’t even in the country-” Kei glanced out at the room as the power went out and everything became dark, “Is it really that late?” he questioned.

Naoya sighed running a hand through his hair, “Would seem so.” sighing he leaned on the desk slightly. “Are you sure it would work?”  
“Yes, but we still have to get Narukami-”  
“Leave that to me.” he breathed out falling into a hunched over cough. Kei frowned and held out a hanky, seeing red slip down Naoya’s chin.  
“I’m going with you, Maki would kill me if something happened to you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Thankfully Narukami was close to where Jun and Tatsuya had moved to, Kei sat at the small old wooden bar. Glancing over Naoya and Makoto were playing a small game. “He’s much thinner than last I saw.” Jun spoke softly, setting a fresh cup of coffee down for Kei.   
“To thin, you can see his bones.” Jun frowned, “I really hope this works, I really do.”   
“You don’t think ‘he’ could had something to do with this?”   
Kei shook his head, “No, they both agreed not to interfere with humans anymore. Though there have been some sightings of a rare blue butterfly.” taking a sip of the coffee he sighed, “So they are at least still watching.” glancing at Jun he looked the man over for a moment, “How’s your new addition doing?” Jun stiffened. “Not good I take it.”   
“No.” setting the glass he’d been cleaning down, Jun sighed, “Every night they try to get in, we don’t know why ether. But he has….he has the eyes. It’s not a persona, at least I don’t think it is. It’s much darker, more demon like.” Leaning on the counter he crossed his arms, “Maybe that’s the reason why we were drawn to him, I’m hoping by doing this it might keep the new demons away. And maybe the one in him.” 

“Kei, it’s almost time.” Naoya spoke up Makoto now drawing at the table.  
“I still don’t see how you’re going to pull this off.” Kei shook his head making Naoya laugh.   
“I have my ways, come on Makoto!” Makoto shoved everything into his backpack and ran over following the two men out.   
“Good luck.” Jun smiled, but was deeply worried. 

Makoto clung to Naoya’s hand making sure never to let go. “So what is your plan?” Kei questioned.  
“Quite easy really, you said his parents are gone a lot. So he must be very lonely, probably not a lot of friends.” Naoya stopped turning to the entrance of a park. Kneeling down next to Makoto he smiled at his brother, “Makoto, you see the boy over there.” he pointed to the gray haired child sitting alone on the swings. “He’s very lonely, I bet you could become friends with him.” Makoto glanced at the boy and back at his brother. “Remember when I still lived at home and you always cheered me up?” Makoto gave a small smile and ran off to the boy. 

“I should had known.” Kei rested his head in his hand, “You’re exploiting your own brother.” Naoya laughed and watched Makoto pull out his art book showing Yu his drawings.   
“If they can become friends, it will know make this easier. And at this point, Makoto could use a few friends, just as I’m sure he could.” sitting down on a bench near by he relaxed trying to look as tired as he was. Kei sighed, knowing this would take awhile.   
Sitting down next to him Kei reached in his pocket pulling out a pill bottle. “Here.” Naoya raised an eyebrow.   
“Why Kei Nanjo, I can not belive you of all people are selling drugs!” he gasped smirking. Kei’s mouth dropped and tried to come up with some comeback. Naoya laughed and took the bottle, “Relax, but really what is this?” he asked looking the bottle over.   
“I had this made just for you, it should help with the coughing and also give you some protein too. Seeing as how you can’t eat well anymore.”

“Should?” Naoya gave him ‘the’ look, “Kei are you experimenting on me?”   
“I would never!” Kei shoved his glassed up and fixed his scarf. “I was just trying to help!”  
“By experimenting on me?”   
“Look if you don’t want them-!” Naoya covered Kei’s mouth and smirked.   
“Of course I want them, thank you.”   
Huffing Kei shoved his hand away, “Asshole.” Nayoa chuckled and shoved the bottle in his pocket for later.

Makoto and Yu we happily chatting away about some book Yu had. Nayoa couldn’t help but smile, though it was sad. Kei didn’t even have to ask why it was such a sad smile, he simply pulled his glasses off to clean them. “It’s for the best.” he whispered.   
“I know.” 

As the day came to an end, Makoto said goodbye to Yu and they parted ways.   
That night Makoto went to sleep early, too tired to care about dinner. “I know this is a coffee shop, but don’t you have any thing stronger hidden back there?” Nayoa asked pushing the bitter coffee away. “This just ain’t doing it.”   
Jun laughed and reached under the counter unlocking a cupboard, “You’re luck Tatsuya likes to mix drinks.” setting a bottle of vodka on the bar he grabbed a glass for him. Nayoa’s eyes brightened up and brought the glass to his lips.   
“Oh no you don’t.” Kei pulled the glass away, “No alcohol with those meds I gave you.”   
“Oh come on.” Nayoa frowned as Jun gave a confused look. “Oh, I’m playing lab rat again.” he explained and showed Jun the bottle of pills. 

“For the last time, I am not experimenting on you.” Kei groaned and kept the glass for himself, taking a sip he tried to ignore the extremely strong taste. But pushed the glass back over to Jun in favor of the warm coffee.   
“He says that, but we know it’s not true.” Nayoa grinned resting his hand on his hand looking at Kei. Jun gave a tender smile at the two older men taking the glass of vodka for himself drinking it as though it were nothing. 

“Papa…” the sudden new voice brought Nayoa’s eyes elsewhere. A head of black hair stood at the bottom the stairs hugging a stuffed black cat.   
“Yoshinori.” Jun dropped the glass in the sink going over to the child picking him up. “Why are you up?” he pushed from of the messy tangled dark locks from the child’s face as he nuzzled into Jun.  
“Where dad?” Jun gave a sigh and rubbed the child’s back, “He’s at work, but he’ll be home soon.” Jun reached over the bar grabbing his keys, “I hate to ask, but could you lock up for me?” Nayoa gave a smile and thumbs up.   
“Don’t worry about it.” 

Jun thanked them as the door shut taking the child home. Nayoa and Kei sat in silence, the click of Kei’s up touching the counter, the pitter patter of rain. Nayoa’s eyes found their way back to Kei who shifted under his gaze. “Haven’t you ever wondered.” Nayoa’s voice was soft.  
“Wondered what?” Kei refused to look at him.   
“Wondered what the world might had been like if Nyarlathotep and Philemon had never made that gamble. If they’d never interfered.”   
“I suppose I might had thought about it once or twice.” Kei’s hands were wrapped around the coffee mug, stealing it’s last warmth.   
“Wouldn’t you rather had lived in a world without them?” Nayoa had yet to stop staring at him.   
“No, I guess not. This is the world we live in after all, it’s what we know-”  
“But if all that stuff in high school didn’t have, you wouldn’t know any different.”  
“Then it must be a horrible world to live in.” Kei scrunched up his nose and downed the last bit of coffee. “A world where wer never became close friends, a world where Maki never got better? Truly a horrible place.” 

A soft chuckled fell upon his ears and he finally looked at Nayoa, “I never knew you cared so much for me.” At this he rolled his eyes and stood from the bar going to wash his mug.   
“It’s not like I care that much.” he mumbled, Nayoa grabbed his wrist as he passed by.   
“You’ve always been a horrible liar.”  
“As have you.” Kei couldn’t hold the gaze, violet eyes piercing his soul. Kei pulled his hand away, “But even so that was a long time ago.” he shifted away and went to wash the mug and soon Nayoa was left alone in the darkness.

 

“I know… but you don’t have to act like it was nothing.”

 

All went silent as the dark hour came. Peaceful sounds turned to moans and groans, beating, pouting on the walls. Nayoa lay curled up on the small bed, Makoto tucked away in his arms. Kei who for once in his life actually said he’d sleep on the sofa, was out cold, dead to the world. And as his eyes slipped shut, a all too familiar song sounded in the back of his head. Though he couldn't place where he’d heard it before. 

 

_”That time is coming… You must reawaken your power…”_


End file.
